Oh chute!

I have been thinking lately about how pride can have such a negative effect on our daily life. It can literally keep us from moving forward in life and progressing in a positive direction. It made me think about when I took a swimming class back in middle school. Like with other sports, swimmers do resistance training in order to build up their strength and endurance. As part of this training swimmers might tie or strap a bucket or, like in this picture, a parachute to them and pull it as they swim. This minor addition makes a big difference to the amount of energy it takes to swim. Like this parachute, pride can weigh us down and drain us of our energy and make life harder than it needs to be! And who needs that? It often starts, for me at least, with my thoughts. Little thoughts of  self-righteousness and pride can spread to an attitude of  superiority. Like with the Pharisees of the Bible and the apostate Zoramites of the Book of Mormon, pride can keep us from understanding things of the spirit not to mention the mysteries of God! So let's stop the cycle, the pride cycle that is, and focus our energy on positive, productive attributes! Like Christlike attributes of faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, brotherly kindness, godliness, charity, humility, diligence. (Doctrine and Covenants 4)